


Reenactors, Chapter 4

by SirJosephBanksFRS



Series: Reenactors [4]
Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 08:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirJosephBanksFRS/pseuds/SirJosephBanksFRS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the outset of the engagement between the <i>Shannon</i> and <i>Chesapeake</i>, Jack and Stephen find themselves inexplicably on the deck of <i>USS Constitution</i> in Boston two hundred years in the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reenactors, Chapter 4

_**8 June 2013 -- Saturday** _

_**A young married couple living upstairs in our house are moving and were selling their possessions, since, as they told me, they are moving to California. Jack and I bought some of their crockery and linens. They gave us something they called a radio as they said it was so old no one should want it. It was attached to the wall and they were playing music, the first real music we have heard since being here, which made Jack nearly run into the street, looking for the source of the** _ **Figaro** _**overture that we were hearing through the walls. Jack took it downstairs as though it were a holy relic, attached it to the wall and stood there transfixed listening, as we both did, astounded. We do not yet apprehend the mechanism. Neither of us has played nor heard music in so very long, not since we were on La Flèche. Had Jack his violin, he could not play in any case, the state of his arm being what it is. I had not realized until today the degree to which we have so sorely missed music, especially making music together.**_

_**We came home after Jack had finished work to shift his clothes and Bach's violin concerto in G minor was playing. I have never seen him so affected by anything - no victory, no promotion, not his wedding, not the news of the birth of his children. He appeared to be in near religious ecstasy, that Bach had reached apotheosis in his ears. His heart was overflowing. I have never heard such music and it is available to anyone at any time and it would seem that few ever listen. I have no notion of what people believe to be music now, besides the music we know which is played on this radio, apparently on something called WGBH, according to Dr. Beales.** _

"Do you wonder," Jack said, dressing after his shower to go out, "how it is that people ever have time to think now? It seems they are watching or listening or talking without cessation all the time. Did you know, Stephen, they carry tiny televisions with them the size of a deck of cards and listen to the sound with wires they stuff into their ears?”

“I believe they are computing machines, soul, not televisions.” Stephen said, looking up momentarily and returning to his book, _Rats, Lice and History_ by Hans Zinnser, which he hoped he could finish reading in order to return it that evening. He was enjoying reading about Buonaparte’s failed invasion of Russia.

“What is the difference? I see them looking at them with the moving images we saw in the inn."

“I am not exactly sure, though they may look at the computing machine bookpages as well. As for what you said, sure, I have thought of it, too. How do they have time to do anything when there are so many treasures available to them at the touch of a finger? If I had one of those computing machines, I should worry that I should starve to death, being able to learn so much at any time. It seems, too, that they can use them anywhere. I wonder if they start to lose sight of the actual world and turn inward to the computing machine all the time. We see people with their heads bowed to them, as though in worship, as they walk on the street. They never look up to see a bird or tree or cloud. Tis perhaps a golden prison one carries in one’s own hand.”

“I was giving a tour and there was a family with a son about twelve years old and the little brute had the television -- I mean the computing machine -- playing in his pocket and was not listening to a word I said. I was so astonished I could not say a word.” Jack said, rebraiding his damp hair into a tight queue.

“Perhaps it is the way Americans are now.”

“I don’t know. I dare not say anything, it could mean losing my position. One simply does not know. In general, what we should have considered the grossest rudeness appears to be considered completely unremarkable. They would have been considered extremely uncivil, even for Americans when we was here in Boston. They were not so different from us then," Jack said, eating a peach,"even though we did not think it at the time. Why, we were two peas in a pod compared to what we are to the people today. Be a good fellow and tie me off, Stephen.” Stephen put his book down and did so.

Later that night in the library, shortly before closing, Stephen and Jack were bidding adieu to Dr. Beales, who had pleased Jack greatly by obtaining several books on English naval history from other libraries in the system. A disheveled man stood behind them waiting his turn and expressed his impatience by stamping and Jack finally turned to him in annoyance.

“Sir, we shall be but one more moment.”

“Hey, Chatty Cathy, I’m in a fucking hurry here. I need change for the meter.” The man said to Katharine, shoving Jack aside to make eye contact with her.

Stephen barely had time to turn to see Jack physically ejecting the man from the door where he had dragged him using only his left hand. Stephen turned and faced Katharine who appeared to be shocked as her eyes were big as saucers.

“Stephen, you must tell him he cannot do that.” She said, finally, shaking her head.

“Twas an unprovoked affront to himself and the worst sort of insult to you. He is a man of honour, he could not possibly do otherwise. In his service, any man should do the same. I should do the same or worse.”

“I understand that, but the word for that here in Boston is assault and battery. I don’t want either of you to end up arrested. I appreciate the gesture and the sentiment behind it, but please do tell him.”

Stephen and Jack walked home in silence.

“And you think me the hothead, Jack.” Stephen said, finally.

“He laid his filthy hands upon my person.” Jack said, gritting his teeth. "I would have given him a good clout just for that, before he spoke thus to the lady."

“I should have done the same, in a heartbeat. But such a fellow, soul, he was such a low, coarse fellow, totally unworthy of your energies and you most likely taught him nothing.”

“Should I have just stood there? No, he would not answer for it, not in any way, but by God,I shall be one of Mother’s Carey’s chickens before I should stand by and let such a lout lay his hands upon me and do nothing, let alone to stand by and ever allow any man to so abuse a lady before me.” Stephen was silent. He stopped and took half of the books from Jack’s left arm.

“Neither of us can risk arrest. It would be catastrophic."

“I know.” They walked on in silence, Jack shifting the pile of books under his left arm.”Have people changed so much, Stephen, or is it that we are not in our own social circle? Is it because we are in America or do you think people in England in general as coarse and low and gross as well? What was such a fellow doing in a library, of all places? What a fine kettle of fish that any lady should have to suffer such a foul-mouthed brute to speak to her thus.”

“Tis a gross deficiency of common decency to be sure. As for home, I could not say, joy. I have no more idea of it than you."

“This morning, I thought this must be the most advanced and civilised place on earth for all time to hear such music available to anyone at any time for nothing.”Jack said, shaking his head. “What a fool I was.”

****

**_9 June 2013 -- Sunday_ **

**_Today I ventured out to Mass at eight o’clock this morning at St. Mary - St. Catherine of Sienna. It is about six “blocks” from our apartment. I had made no inquiries into this church aside from getting the direction. I thought I should attend Mass before attempting to speak to a priest and be confessed._ **

**_I was in some manner more taken aback by what I observed in this church than any of the social or mechanical changes I have seen. It was, I suppose, unrealistic for me to assume that the Church should be eternal and unchanging when so much of society has changed in the last two hundred years, but still it strikes me as strange when the Mass remained unchanged throughout my lifetime no matter the country I have been a worshipper. The entire Mass was in the vernacular -- English. There was no music, no singing nor chanting of the liturgy; it was entirely spoken._ **

**_There was no assistant to the officiant, no novice, nor seminarian, nor boy: one priest alone, a visiting priest to the parish, visiting from a place called Chicago who was named Father Richard Baumann. There was a printed programme which I read to see what the form of the Mass was. There was a something of a sermon given by the priest, which they called the homily. The sermon was delivered on the reading of the day from the Gospel, Luke 7: 11-17. The homily was so wretched, so entirely wrong, based on such a grievous misreading of the text that it took everything in me to not stand up and leave. I could not, I was one of only four people there, the other three being elderly women. I sat there stony-faced, looking at the missal, which had an imprimatur of 2002._ **

**_The priest came and greeted each one of us individually when the Mass ended. He was a pleasant American fellow in middle age, a stout and affable man with a loud voice and a friendly manner who looked at me strangely after he heard me speak and asked me where I was from. For once, I did not know how to answer, I had no idea of it and I said that I was from Dublin and visiting Boston, for I shall never return to this parish and see this priest again, as he is leaving tomorrow in the morning. He told me this was his last religious duty of the day, he had pulled the short straw to get the eight a.m. Mass and that he would be spending the rest of the day at a golf course on Cape Cod and that he needed to be ready to leave in the next twenty minutes. He asked me why I did not take the Eucharist and I said I had not been confessed and he shrugged and said, “Well, next time.” The three old ladies did take the Eucharist. The form is quite different now, they drank the transubstantiated wine from the chalice and took the Host with their hands._ **

**_This priest did not seem an actual Roman Catholic priest to me in the least. Perhaps now this is just the case with American priests and I would not feel this way in Ireland or Catalunya. I never met an actual American Roman Catholic priest in the five months we were here, previously, Father Costello was from Ireland; Boston was a very Protestant town then, as odd as that is to write now, for in 2013, I have been told that Boston is one of the most Irish and most Catholic cities in America. I am afraid I did not confess and get absolution, I did not ask Father Baumann if he would confess me, given his hurry to get on his way to the golf course._ **

**_In any case, I do not know how to say the words, to form them adequately to explain how I killed two men ten days and two hundred years ago. I can imagine these strange priests calling the police or the lunatic asylum and I do not know how to make a confession leaving out the when. God believe me that I should have had no hesitation whatever if I were in Boston in 1813 or anywhere, for that matter in 1813, save in Paris itself, filled with priest informants. In any case, a sign informed the parish attendees that "reconciliation is scheduled for Saturday afternoons from 3:30 to 3:45 p.m. or by appointment" which I take to mean no one actually goes to confession, since an entire parish cannot be confessed in fifteen minutes per week. This is evident heresy to me, since more than one person would take the Eucharist per week. I must do more research and see what else has changed._ **

Katharine handed Stephen three books and sat down at her desk. He looked at the spines.

"Thank you, my dear. May I ask you a question that is entirely of a personal nature?" He said, looking over his spectacles at her.

"Certainly." She said, smiling.

"You are Roman Catholic, are you not?" He said, looking at the necklace she was wearing, a medallion of the Virgin around her neck.

"Yes."

"Where do you attend Mass?"

"St. Paul on Harvard Square in Cambridge. I have gone there since college.”

"Do Americans not go to confession? I went to Mass this morning at St. Mary - St. Catherine of Sienna and there was a notice that the sacrament of penance and reconciliation was scheduled for fifteen minutes per week on Saturday afternoon or by appointment. I must admit I was quite taken aback. No parish can possibly be confessed in fifteen minutes a week." She flushed. “The priest was in a great hurry and left post haste for Cape Cod, so I did not take the Eucharist.”

"I am afraid your impression is correct, Stephen. In general, Americans tend to not go to confession. The parish I attend has one of the longest confession periods of any church I have been to in America -- an hour and a half a week. I was shocked to find out that in Ireland, well-attended churches still have confession scheduled nine times a week." He raised an eyebrow.

“How can the parishioners possibly take the Eucharist?” Stephen said, looking over his spectacles and frowning.

“Some priests have said that the Confiteor during the Mass suffices, that no one need make an individual confession. Many parishes do not even have confessionals built into the church now, confession takes place face to face in the priest’s office or in a pew. Some places, there is effectively no privacy, if confession is made, anyone in the general vicinity will hear and since it is only offered one time per week, anyone regularly attending will come to know the individuals. I would guess those are the some of the reasons the majority no longer go to confession.”

“I am astonished, Katharine. My, my. I suppose I must read these books. I thank you so much, my dear.” Stephen said, standing up and bowed to her as he left.

 

**_10 June 2013 -- Monday_ **

**_Today was productive and heartened me as the branch librarian at Bunker Hill, Mr. Brown, offered me a position shelving books seventeen hours per week for eight and a half dollars an hour. He told me I may do so any time that I wish as long as the library is open but suggested that I break it into at least four days, as I shall have my own cart of books that I need to place on the shelves regularly. I was happy that I was given the books that they call “adult non-fiction,” which are books that are not novels on all sorts of topics. I shall shelve these books with one of the clerks from the circulation desk. Katharine told me that no one should mind if I stand in the stacks and read whilst I shelve with a cup of coffee as long as they get done. She took me back to what they call the work room, set up an area for me and told me to pick a cup of my own to use and showed me where the coffee maker was. I was happy to be able to start working today, for Jack was gone from early morning until early evening. Katharine explained the system by which the books are arranged which is quite ingenious and like nothing of our time. In some ways, it is reminiscent of Linnaeus’ classification scheme of living things using numbers instead of words._ **

**_Mr. Brown is a very jocular sort. He is in his fifties but looks younger except for his salt and pepper hair and beard. He is a wiry man with quick movements and his hand trembles from drinking huge amounts of coffee all day long. He said to me last week, “_ Questi occhiali ti fanno sembrare Greta Garbo.. _.” and I thought that I must have misunderstood him though the translation was fairly self-evident, if nonsensical. I asked Katharine and she confirmed that he did in fact say, “Those spectacles make you look like Greta Garbo,” in Italian and that he said it because he has a calendar in his office that is teaching him a phrase in Italian every day. He seems to like Jack very much and asked him if he had any interest in going to something called the Red Socks, to which Jack had no idea how to respond. Mr. Brown, who told me repeatedly that I should call him “Brian,” (Americans, it would appear, loathe any formality, no matter how trifling) told me that tomorrow evening he will be hosting something he calls "Copyright Violation Theatre" and that the presentation is “Mutiny on the Bounty” with a man named Marlon Brando. He said I should tell Jack since this film is the pride of the Royal Navy and he would certainly enjoy it. Could this be a play about the_ HMS Bounty _, which Jack has mentioned so many times and the unfortunate William Bligh? Neither Jack nor I have the stomach to view these moving pictures for more than a minute or so at a time._**

**_There is a special section of the library for children filled with books for them like nothing I ever saw in our time, thousands of profusely illustrated books, with more beautiful illustrations than I have ever seen anywhere, each page as colourful as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The lady who is in charge of this section is a Mrs. Cabot, called Hillary, who Mr. Brown informed me traces her ancestry to the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, being a Peabody on her father's side and a Lowell on her mother's. She has worked at Bunker Hill for over thirty years and is, Mr. Brown said, an "Anglophile" and an inveterate matchmaker and that she will marry Jack off to an heiress before he will know what has happened. She is the most English-appearing person we have seen here, and would scarcely appear out of place in Bath in 1813, and is much younger looking than her sixty years. She is a lovely older lady and apparently a gentlewoman. Her husband is very rich and she does not work out of need but as a service to the people of Boston. She has five adult children. Mr. Brown said her father had been governor of the state of Massachusetts. Mr. Brown said Mrs.Cabot is "Boston Brahmin through and through" and that her speech demonstrates that._ **

**_I asked him if Dr. Beales did not have a pronounced Boston accent and he laughed and said that Mrs.Cabot has a Boston Brahmin "English" accent which marks her as old New England, that he and Katharine are "shanty Irish" from South Boston. He said,"Don't let Katharine fool you with that Harvard education and the Limey husband. She's a Southie." I asked if Katharine is married to an Englishman and was informed she that she is a widow and her husband had been a professor of Classics at Harvard and was a rich Englishman. Mr. Brown is an inveterate gossip. He told me that I am invited the next time they go to Uffizi, a Florentine restaurant in Cambridge which shall be on 4 July, as the library shall be closed that day, if I agree to be Dr.Beales' escort. I could not discern if he were making game of me, as many of his remarks are farcical in nature and I do not know him well enough to tell the difference. I am surprised that a person like Mrs. Cabot, a woman of great privilege and social connexion and an Anglican should have an Irish Roman Catholic for her supervisor. She likes him very much as well; they are the best of friends and are openly affectionate one to the other. America is so very different from the Old World._ **

**_Jack came back refreshed early this evening and in high spirits after going yachting. Being out on the water did him good. He was amazed to see so few sail afloat. Virtually all of the boats afloat except for the tiniest skiffs and dinghies have motors. He said the sound of the motors has destroyed the peace of being on the water. The man who invited him, a Mr. Pierre Dupont, is apparently extremely rich and an enthusiast of yacht racing. He had a forty-four foot sailboat which Jack said was a good sailer but he found it a strange and unwieldy sized craft, and found the practice of using the motor an annoyance and the man’s knowledge of the soundings very poor, as he relies on a machine to take them. He wants Jack to be the skipper for him in a regatta in July. I examined his arm and it does not look the worse for wear. He said that there was very little heaving to be done._ **

“It does not seem real sailing to me at all, Stephen.” Jack said, eating a plum Stephen had picked up at the farmer’s market. “How is it sailing when one can luff up, flip a lever and turn on a motor at any time? It took far more skill to sail the cutter or the jolly boat and we let the youngsters handle them alone all the time. It seems that no one here can do the easiest blue water sailing without using a motor at will. Even a skiff could be more of a challenge in the wrong conditions.” Jack put the pit down.

“It would be most useful with no wind though, soul, would it not?” Jack frowned.

“I suppose, though we always made out fine, more or less. He named her “Hubris,” can you imagine? To tell the truth, Stephen, just that alone made me skittish as a cat in a storm. She was somewhat tricky, she had a wickedly deep draught because of the keel to make her a fast racer and a huge amount of sail area for her size. He said she’s easily made twenty knots racing. She could be downright dangerous in a strong gale for a man who did not understand her. He showed me her plans before we set out. This was his small boat, Stephen, he has one that is far larger. Still, it was good to be out there, away from everything, not closed up in the Navy Yard. And it was damned handsome of him to invite me. I cannot get over a man owning such a boat as a pleasure craft and knowing so little about handling her. Why, he knew little more about sailing than...” Jack quickly stopped himself. “I showed him her best point of sail and he was shocked that I could see that never having sailed on her before and said I handled her better than anyone he had ever seen. He told me I should work at the yacht brokers and I could make a fortune, taking the parvenu out sailing and making it look so easy.” Jack laughed at that. “It sounds dreadful, Stephen, don’t it?” He sighed. “He told me he would recommend me for a job and I could have one in a heartbeat. I hope it don’t ever come to that.”

“I should think not.” Stephen said, pouring them each some sherry.

“She was a strange kind of a boat. So much space wasted on so many gewgaws to reduce the actual work of sailing. It had one of those infernal televisions on it. Seven people on her would be scarcely able to move about, Stephen, can you believe that? I think he was disappointed that I was not more impressed with the ridiculous luxuries aboard her. I would far rather take the Constitution out with a crew that could actually work her.”

“Will _Constitution_ sail any time soon?”

“Apparently, Commander Bonner may take her out on the July 4 and then there is one other occasion that she may sail. They sailed her last August to commemorate her victory against the _Guerriere_.” Jack said, unenthusiastically.

“Soul, it was two hundred years ago. And the Americans are now the United Kingdom’s strongest allies. And they have been very handsome, as you yourself said, giving us jobs. There is no animus in them at all. They act as though you, yourself are a relation of the Queen of England, with your accent.

“I have no accent, Stephen, it is they who have an accent and a damned strange one, strange that it has changed so much over the years. They speak nothing as they did when we were here before.” Stephen ignored this comment. “They will not be taking her out for her victory against us on _Java_ , given it was in the midst of winter here. That anniversary has passed by, anyway.” Jack said.

“Two hundred years certainly changes one’s perspective.” Jack looked at him.

“Stephen, does it seem like what we did was insignificant? Here we are, apparently missing the end of it all, the war against America, the war against Buonaparte and we know that our side won apparently without your and my continued involvement.” Jack said and he looked downcast.

“No, Jack. You had many great victories. England’s victory is certainly in part due to your efforts and perhaps some of my own very modest contributions. If anything, it pains me it is that it is now two hundred years later and Catalunya is still part of Spain.” Stephen said. “I suppose that should give me something to do now. Dr. Beales showed me that she found people on her computing machine that I can meet to be involved in Catalan independence. I certainly never thought that there should be such a need now. But apparently, there is at the moment political momentum. I was astonished to see something she showed me, those moving pictures of people in Barcelona last fall, over one and a half million people marching in the streets.” Stephen did not add that he had to actually go outside, experiencing a strange mixture of elation, rage, frustration and happiness and take a long walk before he could even speak.


End file.
